Tuesday, May 28, 2013

#ReadItMD13 Theme Week - "Sequels and Series. Just one is never enough!"

This week on #ReadItMD13 we asked our faithful Twitterati to tell us their favourite children's books that are part of a series, or have sequels. You did not let us down, and we've had some fantastic recommendations which we'll come to in a second.

Book series are wildly popular, because parents and children learn to 'trust' a set of well known characters, and they're curious to know what they get up to next. Some of the biggest selling children's books are often part of a series, and some authors and illustrators are experts at spinning new yarns involving characters that have been loved by children for generations.

Series books are seen as important by reading experts too. If a child knows a particular set of characters, they can learn with those characters, increasing the level of their own self reading successfully as the stories grow in complexity. Biff Chip and Kipper (love 'em or hate 'em) are part of a huge collection of early readers / phonics books and despite the odd naysayer, these books have proved wildly popular and extremely useful as the springboard for children to leap into their own reading adventures.

Without further ado though, I'm going to pass over to the wonderful Twitter folk who responded to our call for their fave children's book series. Take it away, folks!

Jake Hayes (@tygertales)
"Mortal Engines and Mr Gum"

Paula Harrison (author of the Rescue Princesses @P_Harrison99
"We got a lot of fun out of the Meg and Mog books!" (We love them very much too!)

Colin West (Poet extraordinaire @mooseandmouse)
"Frog and Toad - Best double act since Laurel and Hardy!"

Booka Uhu (@bookauhu)

"The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy, Deepwoods by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell and Protector of the Small by Tamama Pierce!"

Catherine Friess (@cjfriess)

"The Rescue Princesses and Kipper - and Winnie the Witch!"

Simon Tuck (@thebigshoe)

"The My Daddy series! Exceptional! Trailblazing! Spectacular" (and he wrote them so he should know :)

Damyanti Patel (@damyantipatel)

"The Fairy Detective Agency series starting off with Operation Bunny"

Anne Thompson (@alilibrarylady)

"The Claude and Sir Bobbysocks series by Alex T. Smith"

Helen Dineen (@aitcheldee)

"Katie Morag and Sir Charlie Stinkysocks"

Anne-Marie (@childledchaos)

"Martha and the Bunny Brothers by Clara Vulliamy and Hugless Douglas by David Melling" (Hooray! Love 'em!)

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About ReadItDaddy

2016 YABA Award-Winning Book bloggers for your busy little bees. Dad (old enough to know better) and Charlotte (young enough to be a smarty pants) take a look at the best and brightest children's picture books, chapter books and other great kids stuff